Giovanni Giacometti

Koller Auktionen, Zurich, 19th November 1993, lot 3078

Private collection, Germany

G. Giacometti, Registro dei quadri, no. 2, p. 60, no. 494

W. Hugelshofer, Giovanni Giacometti 1868-1933 (Monographien zur Schweizer Kunst, Bd. 8), Zurich/Leipzig, 1936, p. 23, no. 47, ill.

W. Hugelshofer, "Giovanni Giacometti (traduzione di Renato A. Stampa)", in Quaderni Grigioni Italiani, vol. 7 (no. 2, 3, 4), vol. 8 (no. 1), Bellinzona, 1938, ill. no. 49

E. E. Köhler, Giovanni Giacometti 1868-1933. Leben und Werk, Zurich, 1969, no. 402

P. Müller, V. Radlach, Giovanni Giacometti 1868-1933. Werkkatalog der Gemälde, vol. 2, Zurich, 1997, p. 532, no. 1929.12, ill.

The landscape depicted in this work, mostly made up with green, pink and blue tones, plunges us in the intimacy of Giovanni Giacometti. The artist indeed painted his house in Stampa surrounded by lush nature, where he spent the last forty years of his life. Giacometti executed Curtin / Obstgarten four years before his death, demonstrating his ability to capture the summer atmosphere of his daily environment with an exceptional mastery of colours and light.

Giovanni Giacometti studied in Munich and travelled to France and South Italy before meeting Giovanni Segantini, who soon became his mentor. Strongly inspired by Segantini’s divisionism and love for nature, his colour palette became brighter and enhanced by a greater range of chromatic nuances. Both artists, along with Cuno Amiet, pursued the goal to intensify the effects of colours and light, thanks to the juxtaposition of strokes and dots of paint.

It’s only after the death of his mentor that Giovanni Giacometti started to express his own artistic style. From the turn of the century onwards, he was confronted to Hodler’s work and discovered the production of artists such as Van Gogh, Gaugin and Cézanne. Together with Cuno Amiet, he went beyond divisionism toward an expressive, vibrating and daring use of colour.

The present work is a great example of Giacommeti’s mature style, combining traditionalism with a commitment to visual sensations. It also reveals the extent to which his native land, the Val Bregaglia, constantly remained a source of inspiration for him and his quest for the depiction of colourful atmospheres. Giacometti was among the first Swiss artists to embrace the artistic innovations of his time and offered a personal interpretation of different currents such as Impressionism, Fauvism and Neo-Impressionism.